The father of a missing Miami woman said a man seen with his daughter the day she disappeared bears a strong resemblance to convicted killer Gary Michael Hilton.

“It looks like [Hilton],” said Anibal Miliani, who lives in Miami. A newly circulated sketch from an FBI-trained artist is breathing new life into suspicions that Hilton may have been involved in Rossana Miliani’s disappearance.

Her father hasn’t seen or talked to Rossana since Dec. 7, 2005, when the then-26-year-old was spotted with a graying stranger purchasing a backpack in a Bryson City, N.C. general store.

Hilton, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Buford hiker Meredith Emerson and awaiting trial in the decapitation of a Florida Sunday school teacher, is the sole suspect in two other murders and has been termed a “person of interest” in a third.

The store clerk who waited on Rossana said the man accompanying her was in his late 50s or early 60s and appeared to have been wearing a hairpiece. He told the clerk (who didn’t come forward until hearing about the Miliani case some two years after she was reported missing) that he was a preacher who traveled to various campgrounds across the region.

Private investigator Steve Siske, hired by the Milianis to find Rossana, said the clerk thought Rossana appeared nervous.

North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation told Siske they plan to interview Hilton, but so far that hasn’t happened.

“The NC State Bureau of Investigation is still considering a possible connection between Hilton and Miliani’s disappearance, but that is not the sole focus of our investigation,” said Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for the North Carolina bureau of investigation.

Miliani’s father doesn’t believe his daughter, who suffers from bipolar disorder but has traveled extensively, ran away or committed suicide.

“She called me most every night, to check in” he said. On Dec. 6, 2005, she rang her dad from a Cherokee Ramada Inn roughly five miles from Bryson City. Rossana, who had taken the bus from south Florida to North Carolina earlier that day, told him she wanted to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

Emerson, Hilton's first identified victim, was abducted from Blood Mountain in north Georgia on New Year’s Day 2008. Authorities in North Carolina have implicated him in the October 2008 murders of an elderly North Carolina couple, John and Irene Bryant, last seen hiking in Pisgah National Forest.

Prosecutors in Leon County, Fla., plan to seek the death penalty against Hilton for killing Cheryl Hodges Dunlap. Her dismembered body was found Dec. 15, 2007, in the Apalachicola National Forest — roughly 200 miles from where Ormond Beach, Fla. stock clerk Michael Scot Louis’ decapitated remains had been located eight days earlier.

Hilton is deemed a “person of interest” in Louis’ murder.

“We know [Hilton] was in the area at the time, and dismemberment is very uncommon,” said Sgt. James Gogarty with the Ormond Beach Police Department. Their evidence “links with what they [Leon County investigators] have on [Hilton],” he said.

There’s no evidence connecting Hilton to Miliani -- just a sketch and some striking similarities to other cases involving the erstwhile drifter.

“The frustration I have with the case is, if it’s not Hilton, who is it?” Siske said. “If he’s not involved, then we can eliminate the only real lead we have so far.”

“It’s so painful not knowing,” Anibal Miliani said. “I hope she never met [Hilton], but I want to know one way or another. It’s been almost four years.”

Answers in the Louis case are also proving elusive. Investigators are waiting for DNA evidence from a California lab that might link Hilton to Louis’ murder, though officials say it could be months before results are available.

A newly circulated sketch of a man seen with a Miami woman on the day she disappeared resembles convicted killer Gary Michael Hilton, the woman's father said. The store clerk who described the man to the sketch artist suspects he was wearing a hairpiece.

Hilton's booking photo

Logged

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware/Of giving your heart to a dog to tear -- Rudyard Kipling

One who doesn't trust is never deceived...

'I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind' -Edgar Allen Poe

Meredith Emerson61-year old Gary Michael Hilton kidnapped 24-year old hiker Meredith Emerson on New Years Day, tortured her for three days, then killed her with a blow to the head, and hid her remains in the woods near where she went missing.

Meggs takes lead role in Hilton case, will ask court for trial dateBy Will Brown • DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER • August 12, 2009

State Attorney Willie Meggs, who is now the lead prosecutor in the case against Gary Michael Hilton, said he will ask the court in September to set a trial date. He suspects a date will be set for sometime in early 2010.

Hilton, 62, is awaiting trial on a charge of murder in the 2007 death of Crawfordville resident Cheryl Dunlap, 46. He is being held in the Leon County Jail, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against him.

Originally Meggs and former Assistant State Attorney Jackie Fulford were going to try the case together, but Gov. Charlie Crist appointed Fulford to the Second Judicial Circuit Court a month ago. Assistant State Attorney Eddie Evans will assist Meggs in the case, but the State Attorney is currently unsure whether he will ask anyone else to join him.

"What I find is as State Attorney, if I get involved in a case, there is a period of time when the case actively gets going (and) it's like I'm not there," Meggs said. "You get so involved in a case that's going to last a week or 10 days. It's not like being in the office because your mind-set is focused on the case."

Meggs said he personally prosecutes high-profile capital murder cases every three or four years. Meggs also is the primary prosecutor in the official misconduct case against former Speaker of the House Ray Sansom.

Fulford's departure will be felt within the State Attorney's office, but it will not deter the state's prosecution of Hilton, Meggs said.

"Jackie was a very good lawyer, and she will be sorely missed in the State Attorney's office," Meggs said. "We're very proud she's a circuit judge. We did lose a great trial lawyer in Jackie, but we have other great trial lawyers. It does go on, no one lives forever."

The U.S. Forest Service has identified a cache of supplies at a concealed campsite in Fannin County, Ga., as belonging to convicted murderer Gary Michael Hilton.A hunter stumbled across the campsite and equipment Friday and thought the items might be stolen or illegally dumped, said Sgt. Justin Turner with the Fannin County' Sheriff's Department.

The hunter called the U.S. Forest Service, which responded and positively identified the items as belonging to Hilton, Turner said. U.S. Forest Service police and Fannin County Sheriff's Department began gathering the items and establishing a chain of custody. The items were taken by the Forest Service.

Officers took clothing, books and camping supplies, which will be examined to see if the items are evidence in any crimes.

Hilton is accused of killing John and Irene Bryant of Horse Shoe in October 2007. The Bryants disappeared while hiking near the Cradle of Forestry in Pisgah National Forest. He has not been charged.

The body of Irene Bryant, 84, was found near the couple's car. The body of her husband John, 79, was found about three months later near Franklin.

Hilton is currently serving a life sentence for the New Year's Day 2008 abduction and subsequent murder of 24-year-old Meredith Emerson of Buford, Ga., a hiker who disappeared from a trail in Union County. Her body was later found in Dawson County.

JACKSON, Ga. -- A hunter accidentally found camping supplies, clothes and books belonging to convicted killer Gary Michael Hilton in the Chattahoochee National Forest, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

It happened last Friday at a concealed campsite and the hunter thought the supplies were illegally dumped or stolen.

Though a deal was struck in Georgia that allowed Hilton to avoid the death penalty there in exchange for revealing the location of Emerson's body, he now faces the possibility of the death penalty in Florida.The Florida jury also found Hilton guilty of kidnapping and grand theft in conjunction with Dunlap's murder. Sentencing will be handled at a later hearing.

Gary Michael Hilton Gets Death Penalty Recommendation in Floridaposted todayCircuit Judge James Hankinson read the jury's statement in court: "State of Florida versus Gary Michael Hilton. A majority of the jury by a vote of 12 to nothing advise and recommend to the court that it impose the death penalty on Gary Michael Hilton, so say we all."

The decision is a recommendation. It does not become a sentence until the judge rules on it. Judge Hankinson has not set a date for sentencing yet. It is rare for a judge to vary from the recommendation of the jury.

Suspect in slayings of former Skaneateles couple gets death sentence for another killingPublished: Friday, April 22, 2011, 10:47 AM The Gainesville Times, of Gainesville, Georia, is reporting that the prime suspect in the 2007 slaying of Irene and John "Jack" Bryant has been sentenced to death for another 2007 killing.

The Bryants, who lived in Skaneateles until 1990, disappeared in late October 2007 from Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina. The two were avid hikers. The body of Irene Bryant, 84, was found Nov. 9 under a pile of leaves. The body of Jack Bryant, 79, was found in February 2008 at a dump site near another national forest in North Carolina. Jack Bryant was the Skaneateles town attorney for 24 years.

A drifter convicted of killing a Florida Sunday School teacher and leaving her beheaded body in a national forest has been officially sentenced to death. Gary Michael Hilton was convicted in February of killing, kidnapping and robbing Cheryl Dunlap, 46.The judge followed the recommendation of the Tallahassee jury which voted unanimously to recommend the death penalty.

ASHEVILLE — With eyes downcast and a few whispers to his attorney, Gary Michael Hilton appeared before a judge for the first time Monday in the slayings of a Henderson County couple out for hike.

Hilton pleaded not guilty and asked for a jury trial. He will be represented by the attorney who defended the killer of Eve Carson, UNC student body president, and he will remain held in the Asheville area. ::snipping2::He was given a Sept. 6 trial date, although defense attorney Kimberly Stevens, of Winston-Salem, said she would request more time for preparation. ::snipping2::Accused in the killing of John Bryant, 80, and Irene Bryant, 84, Hilton already has been sentenced to life in prison in the killing of a Georgia hiker and to death for killing a Florida nurse, also out for a hike.

Thought we had a thread on Eve Carson, can't find it. Just making a note of Eve's killer update

Man found guilty, gets life without parole in murder of UNC student body president Eve Carson Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Associated Press, Published: December 20HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — A Durham man was convicted Tuesday and sentenced to life without parole in the slaying of a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student body president.

The jury on Tuesday found Laurence Lovette Jr. guilty of first-degree murder in the March 2008 slaying of Eve Carson. He was also convicted of first-degree kidnapping and robbery. He showed no emotion as the verdict was read.

Lovette, 20, was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a minor when the crime was committed.

For the kidnapping and robbery charges, Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour tacked on an additional 20 years to the end of Lovette’s life sentence.

Special Agent Clay Bridges, who is a Georgia POST Certified police officer, was the lead investigator on the Gary Hilton Case, which involved the murder of Meredith Emerson, a University of Georgia co-ed.

Dr. Brent Paterline is a well recognized scholar who has conducted extensive research on the topic of violent serial crimes and sexual predators.

Together, they will discuss the Gary Hilton Investigation in the state of Georgia and address Gary Hilton’s prior criminal activity